CLIMB
Delivering scientific presentations and posters for impact
Steve Lee, PhD
Assistant DirectorNorthwestern UniversityFall 2012
Collaborative Learning and Integrated Mentoringin the Biosciences
Deliver your presentations for impact
○ Intellectual Merit
○ Broader Impact
2
But why?
Because reviewers are considering impact
Overall Impact: Reviewers will provide an overall impact/priority score to reflect their assessment of the likelihood for the project to exert a sustained, powerful influence on the research fields involved
NIH criteria
NSFcriteria
In these activities, what helps and what makes it difficult to remember?
1. Memorize as many letters as possible
F T U S P B T I H B
F B I U S B H T T P
2. Remember as much of the text as possible
3
Let’s start with 2 activities
What are some challenges in scientific presentations and posters?
4
What are some strategic advantages in scientific presentations?
5
We will address:
1. Principles of Effective Communication
● challenges in communication
● ideas that “stick”
● speaking in different communication styles
2. Some Practical Suggestions
● tips for creating slides
● good and poor examples
● sample video
6
What’s a “sticky” idea?
Similar to the NIH
definition for impact
7
Part 1: Principles of Effective Communication
The project must exert a
sustained, powerful influence
A sticky idea is understood and
remembered, and has lasting impact to
change people’s opinions or behavior
Why is it so hard to communicate effectively?Because of The Curse of Knowledge
● Research at Stanford with tappers and listeners
○ tapper was given a popular song
○ listener had to guess the song
○ beforehand, tapper was asked to predict the % of songs that would be guessed correctly
○ tappers predicted: ~50%
○ actual: 3% (!)
● The Curse: those with knowledge (tappers) are cursed with not understanding the audience’s (listeners) perspective
8
telling ≠ e%ective communication
Instead, transform your ideas to
stick
9
Transform your ideas to stick
Use as many of these 6 key principles as possible:
Simple: find and share the core message
Unexpected: get their attention – surprise or twist
Concrete: help people understand – be specific
Credible: help people believe – give evidence
Emotional: help people to care – inspire
Stories: share ideas to simulate and inspire10
Speak to a broad audienceusing the Myers-Briggs types
11
How do you prefer:
● to relate to people?
● to gather information?
● to make decisions?
● to relate to the outside world?
○ Extroverts○ Introverts
○ Sensors○ INtuitors
○ Thinkers○ Feelers
○ Judgers○ Perceivers
12
S-types
N-types
Communication strengths
○ visual and audio info
○ concrete information
○ details; real experiences
○ realistic; grounded
○ inspirational
○ stories; visionaries
○ big picture & patterns
○ significance; analogies
Potential problems
○ dry or flat
○ random details
○ lack meaning
○ vague
○ ambiguous
○ not concrete
Apply a mix of communication styles
Communicate to inform and inspire your audience!
●What core messages need to “stick”?
○ prioritize your messages
●Don’t just try to compress a longer talk
●Don’t just “get through the material”
13
Part 2: Some Practical Suggestions
How do you start?
Craft a scientific story
● the classic elements of a story are:○ thesis – intro characters, context, significance
○ antithesis – problem or question
○ synthesis – wrap up and conclusions
● set your story with clear rhetorical markers○ context and significance
○ complication
○ question or problem
○ hypothesis or proposal14
One challenge is to go broad and deep
speak to broad audiences: use analogies and illustrations
15
speak to experts:
use 1 or 2 examples in depth
Creating Slides
● Plan to spend 1-2 minutes per slide○ 10 min talk: 6-9 slides
○ 30 min talk: 15-20 slides
○ etc
●Maximize the “info to ink ratio”
16
info
ink
Use “message” titles
17
“Topic” titles only give the topic of the slide.
“Message” titles deliver your whole message.
Studies show more people remember content in message titles.
Or use “question” titles
18
Also, good useof outline
Convert bullet lists into word tables(if possible)
19
bullet lists word tables
better use of spacewith larger fonts
Here’s a good example of word tables
20
main intro slide
subsequentslides
Only use sans serif fonts
21
Thin ThinTimes New Roman Arial
Serif Font Sans Serif Font
SerifsThick andthin strokes
Plain Strokes haveeven width
easier to read
Avoid using color gradients
What you see on your monitor is not what the audience sees on the screen.
22
tough to read
Additional tips for creating slides
● Organize experiments for clear communication
○ trials done in lab
– trial A; trial B; trial C; trial D – last trial works
○ during a presentation
– chronological order: A, B, C, D
– better order: D and then A, B, C (briefly)
○ don’t drag the audience through useless information
● To minimize slides, place extra content on slides or handouts for afterwards.
23
Suggestions for delivering your talk
● If you get nervous, try memorizing your introduction. (more tips on handout)
● Eye contact helps to relate with your audience.
● Connect your spoken words with the slides.
● Your physical posture …
○ affects the audience’s perception of you
○ and your performance as well
● Practice and get feedback – early and often
24
Make your poster “skimmable”
25
Avoid lazy conversions of papers or slides into a poster, or a “data dump”
26
More tips for posters
27
● Engage your listener
○ Ask about their research and interests
● Viewers won’t read paragraphs of text
○ summarize in word tables or bullet lists
● Annotate data with your main message
○ explain the significance of the data
● Take advantage of your medium
● Give the big, “skimmable” picture
Resources
● Chip and Dan Heath’s
Made to Stick
●Making Oral Presentations: Dealing with Nervousness (handout)
● Amy Cuddy’s Poptech talk
● Power Poses
28
29
Transform your ideas to
stick
